


the damp grass that yields to me

by girlmarauders



Series: soul plants [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Nature, soul plant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 11:51:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16953489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlmarauders/pseuds/girlmarauders
Summary: "a daemon-like AU where instead of a soul animal you have a soul plant"





	the damp grass that yields to me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Magical Realism Prompt Fest](https://girlmarauders.dreamwidth.org/27678.html) on my dreamwidth for the prompt [a daemon-like au where instead of a soul animal you have a soul plant](https://girlmarauders.dreamwidth.org/27678.html?thread=27678#cmt27678)
> 
> [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery) made this [beautiful moodboard](https://growlery.dreamwidth.org/8827.html) for this series. please go tell her how gorgeous it is!

Looking after the desert succulent in Switzerland had been kind of hard, but Auston made it work. It wasn't like they were hard plants to look after, but he'd worried about it getting cold, or too wet. His mom had rolled her eyes and bought him a heat lamp and reminded him to move it into the sunlight whenever it wasn't raining. She had brought a cutting of her orange tree with her in the move, and carefully watered it and kept it warm. She'd always been a better gardener than him.

It was even harder when he moved to Toronto, and he wrapped his little buddy as warm as he could make him and moved him into a terrarium with a heat lamp.

His mom hugged him in his condo in Toronto, after he moved in, and cried.

"Sorry, sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. "I know you'll be fine, but you're all grown up now, making your own garden."

“Mom,” he said, suddenly stricken. “We’ll see each other all the time. And I’ll call.”

She snorted.

“Of course you will sweetie,” she said, even though he’d forgotten to call all the time when he’d played junior.

Him and the succulent got through his first winter fine, even though being injured was boring and lonely. Sometimes the guys came to visit and brought succulents they’d bought in the grocery store to keep him company. He took pictures of the growing cluster of potted plants and sent them to his mom. Growing his own garden indeed.

When he got back in the lineup, he scored right away, and felt amazing, like he was flying, nothing could bring him down. The team went out to celebrate and he and Mitch and Willy did shots until the whole bar spun.

Mitch came home with him in the Uber, for reasons Auston didn’t know, Mitch did what he wanted. When they stumbled into Auston’s condo, he thought they’d maybe go crash on the couch or play video games, but Mitch veered off to Auston’s room, to peer at his succulent in the terrarium.

“Hey little buddy,” he said wondrously, one of his fingers resting against the glass. Auston came to stand behind him, and Mitch craned his neck backwards to look at him. “He’s so small. And you’re so…” He gestured the span of Auston’s shoulders. “..not”.”

“I’ll show you small,” Auston said, entertained at Mitch’s drunk-dumb face, and grabbed Mitch around the middle, lifting him up into the air.

“Matty!” Mitch squealed, and flailed around, and Auston realised that Mitch might look shrimpy, but he actually weighed a million pounds. They collapsed onto Auston’s bed, Auston narrowly avoiding elbowing Mitch in the face, and then Auston was suddenly super aware that he was touching Mitch everywhere, their bodies pressed fully together, Mitch’s back on his bed.

“Hey Matty,” Mitch said, with a dopey grin on his face, his face flushed.

“Hey,” Auston said back, and then they were kissing, neither of them making the first move, just coming together perfectly at the same moment. It was slick, and warm, and suddenly so good, Mitch moving underneath him, getting his hand up Auston’s shirt, and pulling on his belt buckle. When he leaned back to pull his shirt off, Mitch wriggled out from underneath him and pulled off his shirt, and then shucked his pants, until he was just in his boxers under Auston. He felt like everything had happened so fast, but then, with Mitch, he should have expected that.

“C’mon Matty, catch up,” Mitch said, and stuck his hand down Auston’s jeans to wrap his hand around Auston’s dick. He hissed; Mitch’s hand felt so good.

“Wait, wait, Mitch,” he said, and Mitch looked up at him, like he couldn’t wait to hear what Auston said, almost naked with his hand on Auston’s dick. “Do you want to? Are you sure?” he said, not able to think of anything more coherent. Mitch grinned.

“Of course I’m sure Matty, let’s go,” he said, and then he pulled his hand out to spit on it and start jerking Auston off, now with a slick glide.

“Oh fuck,” Auston said, and then grunted, falling forward to hold himself up on his hands, just barely, and kiss Mitch’s jaw, his neck, the side of his ear. His orgasm came over him suddenly, one second he was thrusting into Mitch’s hand, making way too much noise, and then he was coming over Mitch’s hand, his undone jeans hanging off his ass. Mitch turned his head towards him, and they kissed, Mitch’s stick hand still holding Auston’s softening dick. He pulled away so he could nose his way down Mitch’s chest, his sparse chest hair, kissing as he went, with a short detour to his nipples to see what noises he would make.

Mitch helped him get his boxers off, and Auston didn’t think about it, just got one hand around the base of Mitch’s dick and took the head into his mouth, sucking wetly. If he thought he’d made too much noise, Mitch had him beat. He groaned loudly, and swore, and then didn’t shut up the whole time. Auston bobbed his head, working spit over his shaft, and jerking him off, sucking tightly at the head like he liked on himself.

“Fuck Matty that’s so good,” Mitch said, and then pushed at Auston’s shoulder, the only warning Auston got before Mitch started coming, his hands flailing dumbly. He didn’t have anywhere to spit so he swallowed, and ignored the terrible taste, pulling off to rest his head on Mitch’s hip.

“Fuck,” Mitch said weakly, and flapped a hand at Auston. “Get up here and cuddle me Matty.”

Auston smiled, and crawled up the bed. They hadn’t even gotten under the covers. He twisted to the side and pushed off his jeans, and his disgusting boxers. He usually slept naked anyway.

He pressed up against Mitch, his chest to Mitch’s back, and pulled the duvet over them.

“Heh, I’m the little spoon,” Mitch said sleepily, and Auston fell asleep smiling.

The next morning, he woke up to Mitch’s snoring. His mouth tasted terrible, and his side was sweaty from where Mitch was plastered to it. Slowly, he tried to disentangle his arm.

“Noo,” Mitch said, not awake and clinging to him. “Few more minutes.”

When Auston rolled over, he looked at the terrarium, same as he did every morning, and smiled. He knew his plant as well as he knew his own hands, or his own face, and he could see the a new leaf forming in the centre, shiny new growth. He looked down at Mitch, now drooling on Auston’s pillow. It was a good sign.

Three months later, after weeks of wheedling and sometimes just plain old begging, Mitch took Auston to meet his parents, an official Meet The Boyfriend dinner at Mitch’s childhood home. Auston brought a nice bottle of wine, expensive but not showy, and flowers for Mitch’s mom, and shook Mitch’s dad’s hand and called him “sir”, which made Mitch laugh at him. Auston’s succulent had grown two more new leaves in the three months. Auston didn’t want to mess it up. Him and Mitch were still new, like a slender tree, but it would be strong, if they looked after it right.

After dinner, which Auston had stumbled through, heavily editing stories about the team to be family appropriate, Mitch dragged him out to the back yard, pulling a hat over Auston’s head. There was still snow on the ground.

“C’mon Matty, I want to show you something,” was all Mitch would say, tugging at Auston’s hand until they reached the tree line at the back of the property. Mitch pulled off his mitten and placed his bare hand on the trunk of a tree. He turned to look back at Auston. “Say hi,” he said, smiling widely.

Auston looked up. It was a tall pine tree, with a grey white bark, and heavy green needles that reached upwards to the cold Canadian sky. Slowly, he used his mouth to pull his mitten off, and placed his hand next to Mitch’s. It felt like a tree, just like how his succulent felt just like any other plant to most people.

“It’s an Eastern White Pine,” Mitch said, grinning. “Pretty cool huh?”

Auston nodded, and slowly smiled back.

“Pretty cool Mitchy,” he said, and they both leaned in, their cold noses touching and then their mouths, kissing under Mitch’s tree. 


End file.
